Manshing is running a photocopy shop which was established in the year 1997 in the name and style of Maheswari Photocopy Services (defendant in this case). The said shop is located at the premises of Indian Institute of
CS Professional · Intellectual Property Rights - Law and Practice · PYQS · June 2024
Manshing is running a photocopy shop which was established in the year 1997 in the name and style of Maheswari Photocopy Services (defendant in this case). The said shop is located at the premises of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. There are many students visiting this shop more frequently as the shop serves main source of course materials by way of xerox copies from various books both national and international published by different publishers. As such some Professors and Associate Professors of the said IIT creates course packs which contained excerpts from books written by other various authors of different publishing houses. The pages were xeroxed, bound and given to students at a nominal rate of Re. 0.50 paise per page. Oxford University Press Cambridge University Press (UK), Taylor & Francis Group (UK), Cambridge University Press India Ltd. and Taylor & Francis Books India P. Ltd. came to know about this course pack, they sued the defendant for the infringement of Copyright for distributing copies of their published books without proper authorization. The plaintiffs instituted this suit for the relief of permanent injunction restraining the two defendants from infringing the copyright of the plaintiffs in their publication by photocopying reproduction and distribution of copies of plaintiffs' publication on a large scale and circulating the same and by sale of unauthorised complications of substantial extracts from the plaintiffs publications by compiling them into course packs/anthologies for sale. Maheswari Photocopy Services received support from academics, activists, and students alike in response to the law suit and several petitions were submitted to be impleaded as defendants including the Society for Promoting Educational Access and Knowledge (SPEAK) and the Association of Students for Equal Access to Knowledge (ASEAK). A temporary injunction prohibiting defendant from selling the cloned course packages was issued by the Court. The defendant contended that no violations of copyright is committed by them as the reproduction is for educational reasons. They mentioned that Copyright specially in literary work is thus not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the absolute ownership of their creation. It is designed rather to stimulate activity and progress in the arts for the intellectual enrichment of the public. Copyright is intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors in order to benefit the public. Questions: (e) Copyright do not protect ideas but the particular expression of ideas. Explain.
Answer & Explanation:
Answer 2(e) Section 13 of the Copyright Act provides that copyright shall subsist throughout India in certain classes of works which are enumerated in the section. Copyright subsists throughout India in the following classes of works: - Original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works; - Cinematograph films; and - Sound recordings. In Macmillan and Company Limited v. K. and J. Cooper, AIR 1924 PC 75, it was held that the word 'original' does not mean that the work must be the expression of original or inventive thought. Copyright Acts are not concerned with the origin of ideas, but with the expression of thought; and in the case of' literary work, with the expression of thought in print or writing. The originality which is required relates to the expression of the thought; but the Act does not require that the expression must be in an original or novel form, but that the work must not be copied from another work-that it should originate from the author. What is the precise amount of the knowledge, labour, judgement or literary skill or taste which the author of any book or other compilation must bestow upon its composition in order to acquire copyright in it within the meaning of the Copyright Act cannot be defined in precise terms. In every case it must depend largely on the special facts of that case, and must in each case be very much a question of degree. In Camlin Private Limited v. National Pencil Industries, (2002) Del, Delhi High Court held that copyright subsists only in an original literary work. But it is not necessary that the work should be the expression of the original or inventive thought, for Copyright Act are not concerned with the originality of ideas, but with the expression of thought, and in the case of a literary work, with the expression of thought in print or writing. Originality for the purpose of copyright law relates to the expression of thought, but such expression need not be original or novel. The essential requirement is that the work must not be copied from another work but must originate from the author.
Topics: Copyright
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